Bandido: Love of Light

The young Mexican lighting studio Bandido has been producing works of lighting art from their Puebla, Mexico studio since April, 2016. Co-founded by friends Alejandro Campos and Joel Rojas as an extension of a school project they were tasked with at University, Bandido is now a team of seven and while young, the studio has carefully defined their values and style.

“For the University project, we developed a lighting product for the first time,” says Rojas. “The CTR 02 Table Lamp. This showed us that working with light could transform atmospheres, spaces, moods, textures, and materials. At the beginning, we used to design and develop furniture pieces. But with time we understood how light contributes and improves our daily life and we decided to share those understandings through lighting products.”

Bandido offers five different families of products—Hanging Lamps, Table Lamps, Flying Lamps, Furniture, and Accessories. The Hanging Lamps collection features five different pendant lights in a range of styles and materials.

“The NAGA pendant lamp is the result of a balance between the exploration of nuances, brightness and shadows with vitreous and stone materials,” says Rojas. “It is inspired by the sparkle show that fireflies make in the forest of light located in Nanacamilpa, Tlaxcala (a city just North of Puebla).”

One of the studio’s table lamp options, the CTR02 lamp is characterized by its simplicity and function. Perfect for a desk, the upper hood can be rotated easily to focus light on a certain spot.

“This is why it becomes a dynamic lamp either for working, reading, or for a specific task in which light is required in a specific way,” says Rojas. “One of our flying lights—the NAGA buttress lamp is the result of a balance between the exploration of nuances, brightness, and shadows with vitreous and stone materials,” says Rojas. “It is inspired by the sparkle show that fireflies make in the forest of light located in Nanacamilpa.”

Bandido’s furniture—the MURA Coffee Tables Set and the FADE Credenza are also inspired by local influences and like their lighting, are crafted from marble, glass, metal, and veneer.

“We are always exploring and combining materials,” says Rojas. “At the moment we’ve been curious about clay, ceramics, wood and marble. We also try to mix different material palettes and processes that could include brass, steel, aluminum, wood, or glass.”

“We are in the constant search of making lighting products with a human centered approach,” says Rojas. “We hope to work towards contributing to the growth of our environment in order to share the knowledge of what we have learned on our design journey.”

Bandido received the ICFF Editors Award in the Lighting category at ICFF 2021.